


stay out of trouble

by driedvoices



Category: Hawkeye (Comics)
Genre: Drunk Dialing, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-20
Updated: 2014-01-20
Packaged: 2018-01-09 09:36:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,236
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1144413
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/driedvoices/pseuds/driedvoices
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I want to be the one you think of when you can't think straight.</p>
            </blockquote>





	stay out of trouble

**Author's Note:**

> Drunk fic in every sense of the word. Appropriate timelines are given no quarter here, but this is set vaguely during Young Avengers #14-15.

It's a little after one when the phone starts ringing off the hook; it's probably not as extreme as all that, but when you've had your head smashed into concrete and haven't found the painkillers yet, well—Clint thinks he more than deserves the string of muttered curses that fall out of his mouth. Lucky whines at him reproachfully from his corner of the couch until Clint picks up.

"Hey, Hawkeye," and just like that, his headache's gone. Or maybe it intensifies. Either way, Clint swallows it back, closes his eyes and lets her voice wash over him, high and light. 

"Ain't heard from you in a while, girlie," he says. "How's business?"

"On hold, for now," Kate says, smiling audibly. "You're missing a hell of a party, old man."

And now he can hear it, underneath the sloppy lilt of her words, the thread of the bass, a thousand tiny conversations screaming through the wire. Everything seems tiny next to Kate, though. He can't even picture her at that kind of blowout, unidentifiable in the crowd and the dark. No, Kate belongs at galas—quiet affairs where she can sip cocktails and silently command the room, 'til she teeters home, champagne-drunk and untouchable. 

"Doubt I could keep up with you, Katie," he tells her. He wedges the phone between his ear and shoulder so he can lean against the counter, stare at the door. 

"I don't know about—oh, ew, hold on. Billy and Teddy might be about to fuck on the dance floor." 

He snickers quietly, gives her a few moments of stumbling and mumbled pardons before he checks in. "All quiet on the western front?"

"Yeah, false alarm. I hope. I love them, but I don't need to be an eyewitness to their junk." The noise funnels off behind her, and Clint assumes the thud is a door closing. "I needed a break, anyway. Found a bathroom."

"Honesty hour, Hawkeye, are you okay?" He scrubs at his temples, so very much aware of how _dad_ -like he sounds. Well. _A_ dad, not their dads. "Because if you need somebody to come get you—"

"What? No, I'm good, I promise. I think we voted America DD earlier, anyway. Look, I just—I wanted to see you. Hear you. Whatever."

"Well, I aim to please—"

"I kissed Tommy," she blurts, and Clint is surprised enough that it takes him a second to rack his brain. Smart-ass kid, white hair, sharp-faced. Kate has a type. 

"I—good for you? What happened to your space man?"

"Let's not talk about him," she says, with a rare hesitation that makes him want to talk about nothing else. "But that's not the thing."

"By all means," he says, hopping up on the countertop to rest his knees. "Let's keep talking about the thing."

"Don't make _fun_ , you goof, I." She swallows hard around the vowel, and it slides rounded and humming into Clint's ear. "I feel like I should give, like, a disclaimer? Because I am fair-to-middlingly drunk right now, so I'm never gonna repeat this again. Just so we're clear."

"Can't hardly wait," Clint deadpans. 

"Because, you know, we talked about this, it feels like all we do is either talk about this or pretend like there isn't anything—and I know we don't _do_ this, and I'm only saying it now because I can, so—"

"Katie," he says, gently, warningly. 

"I kissed Tommy and it didn't matter, even though he's great and fun and good for me, because I kissed him and I wanted you to be there. Is that weird?" She laughs, a little strangled, a little manic. "Things slow down for two seconds and all I can think about is the shit we get into when we're together. I don't think I've missed you once this whole time, before."

Clint squeezes his eyes shut, wishes he could see something besides her, leaning against the door, drinking coffee at the table, shoulder tensed like a bowstring. He could tell her that part, maybe, how the lack of her is a physical strain in his muscles, always reaching for something that isn't there, an empty stretch. 

"Say something," she demands suddenly, and her voice is a jolt of electricity through his skin. 

"You know it all already," he says, automatic. He's not drunk, just dumb, and even if he were, the things he breaks don't have the habit of coming back together when he says sorry in the morning. "I don't work all that well by myself, Hawkeye."

"Yeah," she hums, "yeah, you should work on that, because I really want to be done waiting for you to fall apart. And I'm sick of getting mad at myself for wanting people who aren't you, and I don't know how to stop it."

"I am working on it," he promises quietly, presses his thumb over a patch of raw skin on his knuckle. It stings. 

"Good," she says, and it aches of finality. "This never happened, by the way."

"Right. Because you're drunk."

"And drunk friends don't call each other in the middle of parties to talk about their feelings."

"It's the sober friend's responsibility to erase drunk feelings from memory."

"Damn straight," Kate says. That might be a giggle. "So. What are you wearing?"

A lot of blood and bandages, not the uniform of the trying-to-get-your-life-together crowd. "Aw, c'mon."

"What? I got a free pass for it tonight, sober friend. I'm allowed to think about you when my head's not on straight." He hadn't pictured it before, but now he thinks about that kiss, her kiss, with her fun, good-for-her boy. Clint's never seen Kate when she wasn't totally in control. He imagines what her laugh looks like, joyful and unconstrained, how young she must look when her eyes are soft and closing. 

"Katie-Kate," he sighs, leaning back until he hits the back of his head on the cabinet. "What do you think about when your head _is_ on straight?"

"Still you," she says, plain. "Less acrobatically. I'll start. My dress is purple." 

"Surprise, surprise." The dress, anyway. He can't pretend it doesn't give him a thrill, how she's always in their colors. The other part isn't much of a shock, either, even though it's one of the things they don't talk about. One of those things that he can't. "How about you call me in the morning and we'll pick it up there?"

"You know I won't do that, Clint," she tells him, voice sad and sweet.

"A guy can dream," he says simply. The phone cord has wound its way around his wrist, biting into him like fingers, tight and sharp. "You should go back to your party, Kate."

"I meant what I said in the car, you know," she says, louder with conviction. "I like who we are together. More than anybody, probably. I just need you to—"

"I know, Katie," he interrupts, because if she keeps up his heart is actually going to rupture in his chest. 

"Right." He hears an answering thud, wincing at the thought of her head against a bathroom stall. "You always do, don't you."

"Good-night, Hawkeye," he says. 

"I'll see you soon," she replies. The line clicks off. 

Clint untangles himself, hangs the phone back on the hook. He makes for the bedroom, tearing his eyes off the door with a muffle yawn. Nobody's walking through there tonight.


End file.
